Date: 12 June 2001 (Tuesday)

Start: Cottonwood RV Park, Destruction Bay YT

End: Tok RV Village, Tok AK (246 miles)

It was 49f with a few clouds when we got up. The four motor homes travelling together woke us early as they backed out, attached their towed vehicles, and departed en masse. Noisy crew.

Breakfast was done with a full view of the beautiful lake. Very impressive.

We hadn’t unhooked, so we pulled up the rear jacks, checked the lights, and departed.

The road north from Destruction Bay is terrible. They are working on a long relocation of the road, and in the process they’ll straighten the road considerably. But the current road is potholes, frost heaves, and loose gravel patches over really bad spots. There are stretches of four and five miles of loose gravel road.

I experimented on these stretches of loose gravel (easily three lanes wide) and found the most comfortable speed to be about 45mph. Shortly afterward, I overtook the motor homes that had left well before us. They were doing about 20mph. We passed them without incident and never saw them again. I’ve no idea why they were going that slow, other than they wanted to feel every bump.

The road continued to be poor to Beaver Creek, then it was better to the US border.

Going through US customs was no problem. We went on, with speed limit signs in MPH and no need to convert money. The roads were no better, though.

There were still a bunch of potholes and gravel patches, most of the way to Tok.

Also on the way to Tok, we had the St Elias and Wrangell ranges of mountains to our left. They’re part of the coast range and can be seen a long way off due to their height.

We stopped at a photo opportunity pullout and darned if there wasn’t a moose feeding in the field below. We got out both cameras and got some pictures, then just watched her feed and move around. Then a truck came along and spooked her. She sprinted away into a copse of trees and disappeared.

The land up here in the interior is dry. All day long, we raised large dust clouds as we went over the gravel. Even on asphalt, we could raise a cloud by getting close to the edge of the road.

Dolores was reading something about the arid region and came across a sentence that indicated that a tree with a two inch diameter trunk could be 100 years old.

She has also been watching the wildflower population and taking pictures of all of them. It’s really the season for them right now.

We ran through a few very minor showers that only succeeded in changing the dust on the truck to mud.

Alaska is on its own time zone one hour after Pacific, so we gained an hour coming into Alaska.

We arrived about one pm and checked in. The line at the RV wash was short, so we waited our turn and then washed the truck and trailer. The park here has a high pressure washing rig, so we blasted off most of the dust and mud, then scrubbed soap onto the surfaces and blast rinsed the beast again. This took off most of the dirt, but not many of the bugs that give their lives to embed themselves into the surface of the front of the trailer. We’ll attend to them in Anchorage.

After washing the rig, we walked over to Fast Eddy’s for lunch, then walked the other way to the visitor’s center. We picked up some information and hiked back.

Tok is the first city into Alaska. You have to pass through it twice, once coming in and once going out, due to the road routes. Tok makes its money on trade and services, especially services to travelers on the Alaska Highway. The population is 1300 and they have seven restaurants, four lounges, and god knows how many RV parks. There are numerous establishments designed to separate people from their money.

We hiking around for a while and returned. We watched the only channel for a bit (interesting Alaska documentary). I logged in and received the e-mail.

We went back to Fast Eddy’s for dinner since we just couldn’t agree on what we’d cook. The place was a zoo, with a tour group in the dining room, some of which were speaking German. The halibut was good, especially with the Riesling.

Back to the little house in the trees (for a change) in the RV park to have a quiet evening.